Building engineers

Jan. 15, 2010

By Jessica Tobacman

Does the United States need more engineers? Pres. Barack Obama is one of those who say yes, that the competitiveness of the country depends on it. This idea indicates that the 18th annual National Engineers Week Future City Competition is right on track, encouraging seventh and eighth grade students to pursue engineering as a career. The contest also helps them to consider how to have a positive impact on the environment and how to design affordable buildings, with a theme for the current contest called, “Providing an Affordable Living Space for People Who Have Lost Their Home[s] Due To a Disaster or Financial Emergency.”

In fact, the 1995 Future City contest was crucial to Denise Armbruster’s decision to become an engineer. “It boosted my interest in engineering. I was interested in environmental science, but didn’t know what to do at the time,” she said.

Armbruster competed as an eighth grader at Central School in Glencoe, Ill., at the regional and national levels. “I had a blast. It taught me that engineering wasn’t so difficult. It paved the way for me,” she said. Armbruster is now a civil engineer at MWH Global, Inc., based in Broomfield, Colo. Although she participated as a student many years ago, her increased enthusiasm for, and career in, engineering are results that the competition aims for today.

Future City involves inventing a city and constructing a model of it to-scale. The contest focuses somewhat on the environment, including strongly encouraging students to use recycled items to build the model. Students must also create a virtual model using the SimCity 4 Deluxe computer program; research and write a 700- to 1,000-word essay describing the design of the imagined city; outline the most important aspects of the town in a 300- to 500-word City Narrative; and complete an oral presentation about it.

Learning to protect the environment is one of the reasons that students must design spaces that meet the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) guidelines for environmentally-friendly housing, created by the U.S. Green Building Council. This means that teams must address six major areas: the sustainability of building sites, including the proximity of alternative transportation and whether the site’s development protects habitat; improving water efficiency; optimizing energy usage; reusing building materials and other resources; the quality of the indoor environment, including whether materials emit low levels of harmful chemicals; and design innovation.

The Chicago regional competition will take place on Jan. 16, 2010, at the University of Illinois – Chicago, and national finals will occur during National Engineers WeekTM, Feb. 15-17, 2010, in Washington, D.C. Registration begins at 7:30 a.m. and the contest continues until 3:30 p.m. Each regional competition will have one winning team that will qualify for a trip to the national, final level, in mid-February. Organizers expect that 33,000 students from 1,100 middle schools in the United States will participate.

Although Future City originally included only five regions, it has grown to 40 different ones from across the nation. The Chicago Region has a special distinction, as the only district to participate each year. Although it technically includes all of Illinois, it historically involves mostly participants from this city, with occasional contestants from Rockford, Peoria and Springfield.

Participants connect the cities they create with the environments around them, and perhaps make the corresponding tie between the towns in which they live and their own, natural worlds; these links may, ultimately, help lead them to careers as engineers, which is the underlying purpose of Future City.

Armbruster is one former participant who demonstrates the success of the competition. She enjoyed being a part of the contest so much that, after attending college at the University of Iowa, she returned to first act as a mentor, and then as a judge for the contest, for six years and counting. “I get a kick out of it, as an engineer, to go back and get students interested. I love doing that, to see the connection and the link [to the present]. I can teach about engineering, how helpful it is to society. It’s very rewarding for me. It’s really neat to see the kids get involved with science.”

Armbruster notes that working on Future City as a student years ago offered the opportunity to develop valuable skills that have been useful to her as a professional. “It was great. It provided a lot of practice with presentations. It helped with writing skills, answering and asking questions and teambuilding skills.” Armbruster also learned a lot about the field of engineering. “It taught me a lot about urban design and the connection between engineering and the community, and the needs of it [the community],” she says.

“I would mention to other engineers to be a mentor to a team. It’s very rewarding,” Armbruster advises. She would also recommend participating in the event to current students. “I would tell kids to get involved. It’s a lot of work, but it’s rewarding at the end. You learn a lot of good skills.”